Effective Decision Making Process for Online Businesses

The implications of decision making are numerous for business perspectives. Ranging from customer loyalty to ensuing employee cutbacks, decisions in the business place should be rational and productive. While a good decision can completely change the business scenario, a wrong decision can bring about a huge loss of revenue or even total collapse of the business. As such decision making in business is not just limited to the CEO of the company but every employee playing a part in the production/service process. This will range from the idea to introduce a new product in the market to real time assistance to customers.

What is Decision Making Process?

Put simply, âdecision makingâ is an act of choosing among several courses of action to a single goal. However, businesses should also keep in mind that there is nothing like a âcorrectâ decision. On the contrary, there might have been better choices / courses of action which hadnât been considered or couldnât be thought of in a point of time. However, experience gives us the power to interpret and foresee and make improved decisions over time.

A decision is always made in line of a clearly set goal, more business opportunities, improvement in product/service, etc. Business decisions are made using reasoning or intuition or a combination of the two. Many different techniques are used to make a variety of decisions in the business place. The method used will depend upon the nature of the problem and its complexity.

Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision. â Peter F. Drucker

Decision making process follows several stages, including:

#1 Research & Analysis

In order to come up with the right solution, you have to consider all the alternatives that can work in a certain situation. But first business needs to find where is the problem and why we taking decisions. Researching is the first step to making an informed decision. This could be done either by looking into similar past cases/situation or a group brainstorming for possible alternatives.

Ecommerce business always faces some challenges because of high competition. If Ecommerce business wants to make effective decision then they need to do research like competitive analysis, brand and business monitoring using some effective tool like DataCrops which can gives the accurate analytical report. On the bases of that report top management can take certain steps to improve decisions.

#2 Take Advice from Experts

Business management team must take some advice from industry experts to list out good suggestions to make perfect decision. Industry experts are those who gone through bad phases of business (No one is born genius) and later did a marvelous job by taking amazing business decision. Business management can ask certain questions to experienced professionals or experts to list suggestions or tips which can helps to improve business.

#3 Brain Storming

Brainstorming will bring out the maximum number of ideas and alternatives to decision making. It is only by taking the different perspective of a solution that a âgood decisionâ can be arrived at. Brain Storming often gives some unique ideas like cut the irrelevant employee staff, focus on lead generation to improve profit, increase sales management staff and many more ideas which can help management to take decisions.

#4 Pros and Cons

Now, every idea that the group/individual comes up with for solving a specific problem has its pros and cons. As such, they can be ranked accordingly to narrow down the possible alternatives. Here, the team needs to deeply focus into the advantages and drawbacks of each solution and ranking/prioritizing them in accordance to the goal requisites.

#5 Risk Management

Every solution has its own set of risks. It is the job of the decision maker/team to work upon a solution that involves the least amount of risk. Risk in business decision making might relate to losing customers, reduced revenues, bad credits, employee grievance and various other factors. Online businesses need to take some bold decisions to for risk management. Each one of these has their own consequence. Decision makers need to evaluate and take a step that accompanies the minimal damage to the company.

#6 Make Decision

The final step obviously would be implementing the decision. Decision making can have both short term and long term consequences. While some will present a positive short term output, they can at the same time involve dire consequences in the long term. As an example, a substantial financial investment might be quite productive immediately but does involve a lot of risk in case the output in not achieved in the long run.

Businesses put individual executives, staring from the CEO to the one lowest in the hierarchy, according to their decision making abilities. A CEO is supposed to make the biggest decisions for the company, but a customer service executive too needs to make real time decisions every single minute at the desk. The ultimate outcome combines the skills of every employee in making these âcrucialâ decisions.

The implications of decision making are numerous for business perspectives. Ranging from customer loyalty to ensuing employee cutbacks, decisions in the business place should be rational and productive. While a good decision can completely change the business scenario, a wrong decision can bring about a huge loss of revenue or even total collapse of the business. As such decision making in business is not just limited to the CEO of the company but every employee playing a part in the production/service process. This will range from the idea to introduce a new product in the market to real time assistance to customers.

What is Decision Making Process?

Put simply, âdecision makingâ is an act of choosing among several courses of action to a single goal. However, businesses should also keep in mind that there is nothing like a âcorrectâ decision. On the contrary, there might have been better choices / courses of action which hadnât been considered or couldnât be thought of in a point of time. However, experience gives us the power to interpret and foresee and make improved decisions over time.

A decision is always made in line of a clearly set goal, more business opportunities, improvement in product/service, etc. Business decisions are made using reasoning or intuition or a combination of the two. Many different techniques are used to make a variety of decisions in the business place. The method used will depend upon the nature of the problem and its complexity.

Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision. â Peter F. Drucker

Decision making process follows several stages, including:

#1 Research & Analysis

In order to come up with the right solution, you have to consider all the alternatives that can work in a certain situation. But first business needs to find where is the problem and why we taking decisions. Researching is the first step to making an informed decision. This could be done either by looking into similar past cases/situation or a group brainstorming for possible alternatives.

Ecommerce business always faces some challenges because of high competition. If Ecommerce business wants to make effective decision then they need to do research like competitive analysis, brand and business monitoring using some effective tool like DataCrops which can gives the accurate analytical report. On the bases of that report top management can take certain steps to improve decisions.

#2 Take Advice from Experts

Business management team must take some advice from industry experts to list out good suggestions to make perfect decision. Industry experts are those who gone through bad phases of business (No one is born genius) and later did a marvelous job by taking amazing business decision. Business management can ask certain questions to experienced professionals or experts to list suggestions or tips which can helps to improve business.

#3 Brain Storming

Brainstorming will bring out the maximum number of ideas and alternatives to decision making. It is only by taking the different perspective of a solution that a âgood decisionâ can be arrived at. Brain Storming often gives some unique ideas like cut the irrelevant employee staff, focus on lead generation to improve profit, increase sales management staff and many more ideas which can help management to take decisions.

#4 Pros and Cons

Now, every idea that the group/individual comes up with for solving a specific problem has its pros and cons. As such, they can be ranked accordingly to narrow down the possible alternatives. Here, the team needs to deeply focus into the advantages and drawbacks of each solution and ranking/prioritizing them in accordance to the goal requisites.

#5 Risk Management

Every solution has its own set of risks. It is the job of the decision maker/team to work upon a solution that involves the least amount of risk. Risk in business decision making might relate to losing customers, reduced revenues, bad credits, employee grievance and various other factors. Online businesses need to take some bold decisions to for risk management. Each one of these has their own consequence. Decision makers need to evaluate and take a step that accompanies the minimal damage to the company.

#6 Make Decision

The final step obviously would be implementing the decision. Decision making can have both short term and long term consequences. While some will present a positive short term output, they can at the same time involve dire consequences in the long term. As an example, a substantial financial investment might be quite productive immediately but does involve a lot of risk in case the output in not achieved in the long run.

Businesses put individual executives, staring from the CEO to the one lowest in the hierarchy, according to their decision making abilities. A CEO is supposed to make the biggest decisions for the company, but a customer service executive too needs to make real time decisions every single minute at the desk. The ultimate outcome combines the skills of every employee in making these âcrucialâ decisions.